My Rural Engineered Ws-6 Master

[F350Platinum]

Finally finished my mini WS-6 Master.

First off, I bought a Golden Mask style shaft for it, it came with a steel arm cuff and foot, poorly and unevenly drilled holes for the zinc bolts (all the fitment hardware is zinc ?), and possibly a missing bottom shaft aligner.

The shaft is carbon fiber, not the thickest I've seen, but it's fine for me. It has 3 sections which make it the longest detector I own, here it is next to my stock D2 fully extended:

Yeah it's that long. You'd probably have to be Shaq or even taller to complain about it. Fully extended it's almost as tall as me (6'1). I could probably use it to search storm drains if they didn't have iron. ?

I disliked the arm cuff, so I replaced it with an Anderson cuff for Minelab FBS detectors, it's powder coated aluminum. I used a single stainless bolt as the second hole was drilled improperly, and put 3M Extreme tape on the flange before I tightened it. 

I have a single zip tie on it to prevent rotation, but it probably won't.

Next obstacle was a foot, I bought a Nokta Universal Bipod.

Again secured from rotation by 3M Extreme tape. It folds forward and is very light.

I secured the WS-6 puck holder to the mount using a single zip tie, it will not fall off.

I think I learned that here from one of our other intrepid rural engineers. Gotta replace that zinc screw however, I'm sure it will rust fast. I will probably replace all of the hardware.

Completely compressed the detector is a little smaller than my stock D2:

I understand now why the 3d section position holder was omitted, it allows the coil to be rotated to the side to put it in a backpack.

The biggest obstacle I noticed was the coil yoke, does anyone understand the XP coil securing concept?

Xp coils come with a plug of sorts that goes on the wingnut side of the coil. The coils only come with one washer, and the reason for it is simple:

XP puts all of the rotation pressure on one coil ear, nearly eliminating ear breakage. The plug fits in a hole on the wingnut side, and pushes the coil against the single washer on the bolt head side. This keeps the bolt straight so it does not break, and puts enough pressure on the coil so it can be made difficult to rotate.

I've tested this concept with a Lyman Trigger Pull gauge. The amount of pull on the shaft in order to move it has to be greater than 5 pounds, or the coil will flop. Not so much the 9" but definitely the 11 and 13" coils, which is why you don't want to use two washers - one on each side - to secure the coil. I can pretty much guarantee bolt breakage or flop.

This shaft came with two washer/grommets, that equals floppy coil. Most washers are made with EPDM or some other such compound, and they are slippery. Slippery x 2 = floppy coil or bolt bending and breaking. ?

I found a solution to this as well, I went to my local Ace Hardware, and bought 2 hard black nylon washers and a press plug to hold them together, inserted it in the wingnut side of the yoke, and used the standard XP bolt and plug to hold it all together.

Below is a photo of the assembly, you can see how it pushes the coil left to put pressure on the single washer/grommet, keeping the bolt straight.

This can be tightened almost as much as you want without breaking a bolt, I'm getting 8 pounds of pull before the shaft moves, that's really good for people that don't like to spend all day adjusting the coil! ?

Yes, I'm crazy. ?

I removed two of the zip ties on the cuff, they aren't necessary anymore.

The whole thing weighs 992 grams, that's about 2.19 pounds, a little heavier than the stock D2, but smaller and longer, and far more secure to use. The twist locks are aluminum with rubber grips, probably the second best thing to the carbon fiber ? I prefer camlocks. 

it may not be totally practical but it was a lot of fun figuring all this stuff out!

?

[DWerk]

A pipefitters dream.. ?Real nice job and making it shorter makes it easier to carry in any backpack..

[F350Platinum]

Just now, DWerk said:

A pipefitters dream.. ?Real nice job and making it shorter makes it easier to carry in any backpack..

Thanks, you can vary the balance by using the third shaft or the second. It's a tad heavy and the grip is thicker than I'd like but it was a fun project to build.

[strick]

Nice work 350..If I used my Deus 2 more often I would get the 13" coil and rig it up with a strait shaft...Yours looks about perfect...

A wise man once said "Never Waste A Good Zip Tie"  ? 

strick 

[F350Platinum]

1 hour ago, strick said:

Nice work 350..If I used my Deus 2 more often I would get the 13" coil and rig it up with a strait shaft...Yours looks about perfect...

A wise man once said "Never Waste A Good Zip Tie"  ? 

strick 

Thanks strick,

I'd probably go for the Anderson rig, got this pretty cheap but you get what you pay for. Took almost a month to get here. ? I may go that way yet. ? 

"Zip ties are almost never long enough to do what you want to do, so buy a lot of them"...

... Would be my quote. ?

[RickUK]

Just remembered that i have a spare new shaft exactly the same as yours,i think i may do a similar conversion with my 9'' D2 coil.Thanks for the indepth build instructions.

[Dirtshark]

That is so cool. Great job!